begin the begin

well, we've reached argentina and thus far it seems like it is going to be a great round.

without anywhere convenient or even feasible to stop on our way from south africa to argentina we spent the weekend getting our bearings and struggling with jetlag. not sure why a measly 5 hours did us in so badly but it was far worse than flying from the u.s. to india for both of us.

first and foremost let me say it feels great to be back in a real city. one where things stay open past 5pm and people are actually out and about. i'm looking forward to a lot of nights not eating in a hotel lounge and actually getting to know the place i'm living.

of course it is strange to find ourselves again in a country where english doesn't prevail. it not only doesn't prevail but isn't spoken much outside the hotel and tourist attractions. this is however, a great motivator for my spanish lessons and i hope to start classes this week or next.

fortunately, the jetlag didn't kill the entire weekend. we did explore a little and even caught a tango show with soraya and marco who had stopped for the weekend on their way to brazil. this will be my first round without another spouse and i'm going to miss soraya dearly the next 8 weeks.

luckily i won't be too lonely though since we've got our 3rd set of visitors this year coming in just over a week. we couldn't be more excited to see rho and holly and can't wait for them to arrive! i just pray i don't fail them as a tour guide...maybe i should get one of those sticks with something colorful on the end to make sure we don't get separated...of course after 11 days with me they may want to be ;)

we're off to the wine country in mendoza this weekend. mmmmm, malbecs here we come!!